PEDRO MELO ALVES —
OMNIAE LARGE ENSEMBLE


The Omniae Large Ensemble, originally a septet led by Pedro Melo Alves who won the Composition Award Bernardo Sassetti in 2016, became an orchestra after a commission by the Guimarães Jazz 2020 festival. With new arrangements written in 2020, the music was conducted by the prestigious percussionist and conductor Pedro Carneiro and played by some of the leading national figures of contemporary, improvised and experimental music.
    The performance on the 22nd of November 2020 was the première of this ambitious musical project which later in 2021 was released in album by the label Clean Feed, as Lumina and got nominated for Best Jazz Album at Play 2022.
    It’s the main creative exploration space of Pedro Melo Alves as a composer, where his visions of evasion and transcendence – echoes of a tempting impossibility – are put on paper to challenge. 
    You hear intricate landscapes, with the extended sounds of contemporary music blended with the flow of improvised music and the disruption of electronic experimental music. You hear a collective of people that embrace on stage the sight of the unknown.
    Since 2023 the Omniae Large Ensemble is part of the French network Grands Formats.
© Vera Marmelo
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Pedro Melo Alves — drums and composition
José Diogo Martins — piano
Mané Fernandes — guitar
Pablo P. Moledo — doublebass

Clara Saleiro — flutes
João Pedro Brandão — flute and saxophone
José Soares — saxophone
Albert Cirera — saxophones
Frederic Cardoso — clarinets
Álvaro Machado — bassoon
Gileno Santana — trumpet
Xavi Sousa — trombone
Carlo Mascolo — trombone
Fábio Rodrigues — tuba

Luís José Martins — classical guitar
Luís André Ferreira — cello
Alvaro Rosso — doublebass

Mariana Dionísio — voice
Nazaré da Silva — voice
João Neves — voice
Diogo Ferreira — voice

João Miguel Braga Simões — percussion
João Carlos Pinto — electronics

Pedro Carneiro — conductor